1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to objective-lens protectors, objective-lens treatment methods, and objective-lens cleaners.
2. Description of Related Art
For known immersion objective lenses designed to carry out examination with the end surface thereof in contact with liquid such as immersion oil, immersion oil adhering to the lens tip is wiped off using gauze moistened with a small amount of a solution with an ether to alcohol ratio of 7 to 3 or EE-6310 after the examination is finished (refer to, for example, p. 20 of “operating instructions for the BX51/BX52 biological microscope” by Olympus Corporation, June 2000).
On the other hand, in microscope apparatuses designed to perform in-vivo examination of living organisms, the tip of the objective lens needs to be inserted into a living organism. For this reason, not only the end surface but also a large part, including the end portion, of the objective lens needs to be disinfected, sterilized, or cleaned before and after examination is carried out. In this situation, the objective lens is possibly contaminated before being disinfected or sterilized, and it is not desirable to manipulate the objective lens directly by hand. If the objective lens is manipulated directly by hand after being disinfected or sterilized, it might be infected with some bacteria or contaminated with dust from the hand.
Furthermore, for objective lenses having a small-diameter tip to allow living organisms to be examined with minimal invasiveness, the small-diameter tip of the objective lens needs to be protected from external forces when it is transported, stored, disinfected, sterilized, cleaned, handled, etc. because such objective lenses are readily damaged by external forces due to their lower rigidity.